- I'm craig melvin,
And this is "dateline: Secrets uncovered".
- I cried the whole time.
I know that a lot of parents lose their kids.
- Why would anybody shoot him?
- That somebody had killed a united states servicemen.
There was blood smeared on different walls
And on a vehicle inside.
- He was a great father.
He was always looking out for you.
- We were kind of thinking that they had, maybe, like,
A loan shark situation.
Like they had borrowed money from someone.
- We live in a gambling town. Is he a gambler?
- She was the first one to come in
And really explain how it all had happened.
- It was chilling.
Just almost more than you could bear as a human being.
- He served his country
And then was cut down in the prime of his life.
The story needs to be told.
♪
- Hello, and welcome to dateline: Secrets uncovered.
Family was everything to nathan paet.
The air force officer worked nights
To support his wife, michelle, and four children.
Then, tragically, he was gunned down
Inside his garage.
There were no obvious suspects until a stunning secret
Came to light,
Pointing investigators to a deadly conspiracy.
Here's keith morrison with part of the plan.
♪
- Every bad guy that's ever lived
Is coming through vegas at one point in his career.
- As a homicide detective for the las vegas metro pd
In nevada, todd williams saw it all.
- Whether you're a plumber or a policeman,
You want to go where the work is,
And there's lots of good police work here in las vegas.
- That's certainly one way to look at it.
Williams did the work for 30 years,
Never once sharing his cases with the media.
- I've always refused these. - How come?
- I just didn't feel like murder was entertainment
Or should be entertainment.
That's the best way I can describe it.
- Yeah. - So, I've got my reasons
For doing this now.
- Reasons that perhaps will make sense
Once you hear the whole story.
Which began, for todd williams,
On a cold December night in 2010...
In a family home on a quiet street,
13 miles and a world away from the las vegas strip...
Where horror had just come to call.
The woman's husband was nathan paet,
A u.S. Air force airman.
The operator helped the woman perform cpr...
With the couple's four children just a few feet away.
Michelle continued until the paramedics finally arrived
And rushed nathan to the hospital.
They kept him alive, but it wasn't good.
He'd been shot multiple times.
Michelle pulled herself together and called nathan's family,
Who lived thousands of miles away in guam.
Her father in law picked up the phone,
And then he called his wife, nathan's mom, carmelita paet.
- I was just getting ready to get off work.
- I'm sorry. - You know, I was just like...
"what?"
And I-- and some of my coworkers, I had to leave.
So on my way home, I managed to call michelle.
She was hysterical.
And I told her, I said, you know, you have to pray that,
You know, he lives through this.
- It was too late for prayers,
By 12:49 am, nathan paet was dead.
He was only 28 years old.
Within the hour, detective williams
And his partner, detective laura andersen,
Were called to this new community
Called mountain's edge.
- It was out in the middle of nowhere.
Very remote location. - Wouldn't expect a lot of
Violent crime there. - Exactly.
It was a quiet suburban neighborhood.
- Not that night.
- When I got there, the garage door was open
And the lights were on in the garage.
And when you walked in the garage,
You could see a large amount of blood
Deep into the garage, around a weight bench,
A bench press. - Mm-hmm.
- There was blood smeared on different walls
And on a vehicle inside.
And a trail of blood that led into the house
And ended at a bloody military uniform,
Left behind on the floor.
- And that struck me, um,
That somebody had killed a united states serviceman.
- The first responding officers filled them in.
Looked like, maybe, a carjacking gone bad, they said.
- Usually information we're given initially,
Most of the time is wrong.
So we take that with a grain of salt.
- Interesting, okay.
Nathan's cell phone and car keys and wallet
Appeared to be untouched.
- Nothing that we could tell was taken.
Nothing from the garage.
The vehicle was obviously not taken.
It felt more deliberate, simply because of
The area we were in,
The time of the night it took place.
It just seemed more purposeful than just a carjacking.
- Nathan paet was targeted, must have been.
But by whom?
So detective williams set out to canvass the neighbors.
What did they see or hear?
♪
Somebody shot u.S. Air force airman
Nathan paet inside his own garage,
Just feet away from his wife, his children.
Neighbors had called it in,
Just seconds after they heard gunfire.
- And specifically they saw the car start,
The lights came on, like most cars do,
Automatically.
And then the car lights went off and the car sped away.
So that gave us the impression that's something
We needed to pay attention to. - Yeah, that'd make you
Perk up, all right. - Yes.
- Meanwhile, more than 6000 miles away in guam,
The paet family waited for updates from the mainland.
- So I called the hospital, and they couldn't really
Give me much information at the time.
- By the time, carmelita finally got hold of michelle,
The news was as bad as news could be.
Nathan didn't make it. They couldn't save him.
- My heart didn't break. It was shattered.
- She gave birth to that young man.
She had to know what happened to him.
Had to.
- How did he get shot? Why would anybody shoot him?
We knew that he wasn't involved in drugs.
You know, who would want to actually do something to him
Like that?
- So many questions.
The same questions detectives williams and andersen
Were asking nathan's wife, michelle, in their patrol car
In the hours after nathan was killed.
Michelle told them nathan worked a graveyard shift
At nellis air force base to accommodate michelle's work
And school schedule.
But that day, michelle said she left work early.
She wasn't feeling well,
And they all piled onto the living room couch,
Michelle, nathan and the kids
And fell asleep, until michelle woke up.
It was past 11 pm.
And made his way to the garage to put his boots on
Before getting into his truck.
It was parked in the driveway.
That was his routine.
That is when michelle called 911.
About an hour later, nathan was pronounced dead.
♪
Although they didn't see each other much
During the week, said michelle,
They made sure the weekends were spent together as a family.
- I love you. [laughs]
- His digital footprint proved it.
- Here's michelle, she's bedridden now.
- As detectives were finding out.
- She's like, forget this place.
- Does he have any kind of habits?
What are his vices? And the only thing we could find
Was that he was a dedicated family man,
Loved his family,
And there was nothing but pictures of his wife
And kids on his phone.
He was just a good guy. He was just a good man.
- And when detective andersen asked michelle about
Any extramarital affairs,
Nathan had been faithful, she said, and so had she.
In fact, she said, they promised that
If it ever crossed either of their minds,
They'd talk about it first.
She and nathan were high school sweethearts.
They'd been married for eight years.
The only thing she was guilty of was being flirtatious.
Michelle did say that she and nathan
Were struggling financially.
Michelle said she didn't believe nathan owed anyone money.
But some members of nathan's family weren't so sure.
- It was pretty evident, you know,
That they were struggling financially.
- It was appalling. - We looked in the pantry.
We looked in the refrigerator. It was pretty empty.
- There was nothing. There was no food.
- Within hours of hearing her son nathan was dead,
Carmelita and her husband were on the way to the airport.
- We needed to be there to help michelle with the kids,
Because we figured she'd be really, totally out of it.
- And then they sat on that airplane from guam to vegas
Hours and hours and hours, helpless in their grief.
- I cried the whole time.
- How could you not? - Yeah.
I know that a lot of parents lose their kids.
You know, a lot of people have gone through the same pain.
But it's something you don't want to--
Wouldn't wish, even upon your worst enemy.
- Nathan was carmelita's youngest son,
Her baby boy...
Who everyone adored.
- Peace out.
- He loved to have fun. He loved to joke.
- When nathan's older brother eric got married,
He chose nathan as his best man.
- Well, it really wasn't a hard choice.
Um, he and I were really close growing up.
- He made a little speech or something, didn't he?
- Oh, yeah.
- I'm really happy for you guys.
I wanna say make each other laugh.
That's about it.
- He definitely wasn't somebody with a lot of words.
So it was-it was a pretty short speech.
- Those are often the best.
- Yeah-- yeah, exactly.
You know, and it was really just about,
You know, uh, celebrating you know, us.
And really, what I really loved about it, too,
Was, you know, he-he truly welcomed veronica,
You know, uh, to the family.
- So, uh, here's to, uh, eric and veronica.
Happy for you guys, love you guys.
Cheers! - Cheers.
- Cheers!
- Something that was ingrained in nathan
As a native guamanian, or chamorro,
Who was born and raised in guam.
- Take it away.
- Where family is everything.
- They just always want to be together.
- I've known veronica for...
- It's amazing and it's beautiful.
And I'm super fortunate to have had that
As a part of my life.
- Okay, they are married now.
- Eric's wife, veronica, felt a connection
With nathan and his wife, michelle, almost right away.
- Hi, baby.
- By then, nathan had joined the military
And moved to the mainland,
Where he and michelle seemed to be thriving
As a couple.
- They actually had a really good balance
Of taking care of each other
And picking up where the other one just couldn't,
Or trying even harder, or providing more.
Whatever it was, like, they-they were good about that.
- In 2007, nathan was assigned to nellis air force base
In las vegas.
There, nathan and michelle and their children
Were finally able to lay down some roots.
- He did make a lot of new friends.
He also was very, um, instrumental
In gathering a lot of the chamorros.
On sundays they would go to this park,
And that ended up being a regular thing,
Where they would get together there, barbecue,
And the kids would play, like, ball, softball.
- And just before he was deployed to iraq in 2009,
Nathan and michelle bought a brand new home
In mountain's edge.
- Nice house? - Oh, yeah.
It was really nice.
- It was a nice upgrade. - Mm-hmm.
- For them for sure.
- It had a nice, uh, large kitchen.
Just, uh, just enough room for, you know,
The family to get together.
- So when nathan returned from deployment,
So many gatherings were in order.
But that first thanksgiving back
Was going to be at eric and veronica's place
In san diego, california,
A drive of more than 300 miles from las vegas.
- You know, nathan called me up
And he said, you know, I'm sorry,
We're not going to be able to come down, um, this time.
Um, we just can't afford it.
And so, we-we didn't like that idea.
So we went up there instead. - Mm-hmm.
- Um, and when we did, it was pretty evident,
You know, that they were, you know,
Struggling financially.
Um, you know, we looked in the pantry.
- It as appalling. - We looked in the refrigerator.
It was pretty empty.
- There was, like, almost no food.
- And things were tense between nathan and michelle.
- You almost felt like they were just tolerating each other.
And every now and then, he and I would step outside
And try to have a conversation, just the two of us.
And she would come out
And kind of try to be in that conversation.
- Didn't want you talking to him alone.
- It absolutely felt like she did not want us
To be, you know, able to speak alone.
- When it was time to leave las vegas,
Nathan made it a point to walk veronica and eric
To their car to say goodbye.
- He watched us drive all the way down the road.
I could see him in the rearview mirror,
Just standing there,
And just knowing he had more to say
And wanted to say something,
But he-he couldn't.
- A few days later,
Nathan paet was dead.
- We went through every possible scenario, yeah.
- So many different scenarios, and, you know--
- I think the biggest one that we were kind of thinking
Was they have maybe had-- like, a loan shark situation
Had gotten out of control,
Like, they had borrowed money from someone
And it went sideways.
- Certainly plausible.
This was las vegas, after all.
But remember, michelle told the detectives
That money was tight.
- So was it a loan shark?
Or something entirely different?
- Welcome back to "dateline: Secrets uncovered".
I'm craig melvin.
Nathan's brother eric and his wife, veronica
Got the feeling nathan was struggling financially.
They suspected a shady loan deal
May have led to his death.
But soon, police wondered if nathan's wife, michelle,
Was the one keeping secrets.
Back to keith morrison with "part of the plan".
- It was the end of 2010,
December, the coldest month of the year in las vegas.
Zero resemblance to the island
Where nathan paet grew up riding the waves.
- He loved swimming.
And as he got older, he started into surfing.
So, you know, a lot of times on weekends
Or even during the weekdays, he would, um,
Just go with his friends and the, you know,
Do their surfing.
- Good at it? - He was pretty good, yeah.
- Guam was home.
And carmelita, who'd just landed in vegas
To help michelle with the kids,
Was planning to make arrangements
To bring nathan's body back with her.
- To me, he had to come back to guam.
- Michelle, still barely holding it together,
Met her in-laws at the vegas airport.
- When I got to her, you know, I just--
I had to be the one to really hug her,
To keep her from falling.
- That very same day, as michelle was falling
Into the arms of her mother-in-law,
Detectives were working a lead michelle herself had given them,
Just hours after the murder.
- I asked her if she knew anybody that had a black car,
Simply because some of the witnesses
Had seen a black car leaving.
- Michael rodriguez.
They worked together at a telemarketing company.
- We went to the business address
That michelle paet said that she worked
With michael rodriguez.
And when we got there, in the parking lot
Was a black cadillac.
- So they waited, watching,
For 4.5 hours.
And finally, a man matching michelle's description
Of michael rodriguez got into the cadillac
And drove away.
So they pulled the car over.
- Then the man who confirmed he worked with michelle
Agreed to come in to the station.
- He admitted straight out he was a convicted felon.
He'd served time for attempted forgery and theft,
But he was working now, and was engaged to be married,
And seeing other women, too.
Lots of women.
And that included his coworker, michelle paet.
- Michael said michelle would complain to him
About not feeling loved in her marriage.
There was also money trouble.
Michelle and michael bonded.
- Detective williams had heard enough to know
He had to find out where michael rodriguez was
The night nathan was killed.
Michael said he was at a walmart,
Looking for love, or something like it.
Which is how he found shannon.
- And one thing led to another,
And they ended up at
The sunset station hotel and casino
Before midnight.
- Michael told the detectives he'd been drinking that night,
Couldn't be exact on his times,
But that shannon would verify his story.
So he gave them her cell number and detectives,
Listening from another room, called shannon.
- She didn't have to think about it.
She knew exactly where she was
And what she was doing when she was with him.
- She backed him up, so then they called the hotel
And discovered michael did check in that night.
But the check in time he'd given them was off.
The detectives didn't confront him about that,
Not yet.
First, they needed to look at the hotel's security video.
But there was something else, maybe important.
Michael said he and michelle
Had been in touch that day.
- By then, detective anderson had
Michelle's saved text messages from that same night.
Michelle had given her permission
To search her cell phone.
But they didn't make a lot of sense.
So maybe michael could explain the text
That he sent michelle at 11:12 p.M.
- At 11:24 p.M., michelle texted michael.
- As a female detective,
You get men that look at you like,
Well, you're just some stupid lady.
Why are you talking to me? - Uh-huh, uh-huh.
- And that was what he started to do to me,
Which really did not sit well with me.
- Detectives didn't believe michael rodriguez,
But they didn't have enough evidence to arrest him.
- It was time to talk to michelle again.
- It was going on a week after nathan paet
Was shot to death in his own garage.
The u.S. Air force held a memorial for nathan.
His brother eric spoke.
- He believed in his family.
He believed in what he could do.
The gathering there was-was beautiful.
And to get to meet the people that not only he worked under,
But that worked for him,
And for them all to kind of feel
The same way that we did about him,
That he was very caring,
He was always looking out for you,
Um, and wanted you to succeed
And do a really good job.
It made us feel even more proud, you know,
That what he was doing, um, in the world
Was-was making a difference.
- Family and friends filled the pews,
But one person, one very significant person,
Was missing.
Michelle paet.
Early in the investigation, detectives had asked
Michelle to take a lie detector test,
But she'd refused,
And told carmelita about it.
- I said, michelle, if you have nothing to hide,
Then you should just go do it now.
Get it over with.
- The morning of nathan's memorial,
Detectives called michelle
And asked her to come in to the station.
At this time, carmelita was there
When the call came,
Made sure michelle had someone to take her to the station.
- And when she got there...
- A story came pouring out.
- That is how she said
Her relationship with michael rodriguez began.
And no, it wasn't as innocent as she'd made it out to be.
- And it wasn't long before they began having sex.
Then one night, said michelle,
She and michael were hanging out in his car, drinking,
And she vented about nathan.
- Then she said, michael seemed to get an idea.
He pointed out to michelle that nathan must have
A military life insurance policy.
- And what a story she would tell.
- Welcome back.
Michelle paet insisted she tried to sabotage
A secret plot to murder her husband, nathan.
But investigators didn't believe her.
They suspected michelle actually helped her lover,
Michael rodriguez, carry out the plan
To collect on nathan's life insurance policy.
Problem was, detectives couldn't prove it,
Until a key player made a stunning confession.
Here's keith morris with the conclusion
Of "part of the plan."
Just go ahead and sit right here.
- Right over here, sweetie.
- Remember shannon?
The young woman michael rodriguez
Hooked up with the night of the murder?
She was his willing alibi.
First time detectives talked to her on the phone.
But it wasn't long before shannon realized
She'd been duped and she could not stay quiet.
So she went to the police station
To tell her story.
On Wednesday, December 1st, shannon said she went over
To her friend jessica's apartment.
Meaning michael and the man named corey hawkins,
Jessica's boyfriend.
Shannon was doing drugs that night, so her memory,
She said, was fuzzy.
But at some point in the night,
She remembered jessica starting a fire.
And michael and corey rushing into the apartment.
Shannon left with michael,
Leaving jessica and corey behind in the apartment
With the clothes they'd taken off
Burning in the fireplace.
Shannon said michael made it clear to her that she was
His alibi for whatever he was up to.
Then, she said, they drove to the sunset station hotel
And checked in.
- And they were.
The detectives finally had the security video,
And it showed that shannon and michael arrived
After midnight.
- He, uh, went to great lengths
To establish what he thought was an alibi.
Um, as to time and place,
Where he was, and wouldn't be,
You know, accused of having any involvement in this murder.
- The indication was he had an ironclad alibi
And an indisputable one.
- It clearly was not ironclad.
As we found out,
He had enough time to commit the murder
And to be at sunset station, where he ended up with shannon.
- The next day, shannon got that call from the detective
And said exactly what michael told her to say.
But then the detective said something that made her panic.
After that call, said shannon,
She had to know.
So, she saw michael again.
Michael told shannon his coworker
Was a battered wife.
By michelle's own admission, nathan never laid a hand on her.
Later that night, detectives arrested michael rodriguez,
Along with shannon's friend, jessica austin,
And jessica's boyfriend, corey hawkins.
They arrested michelle a couple of days later
When she was released from the hospital.
The detectives spoke to michelle one more time.
Five years later,
Michael rodriguez went to trial,
And shannon was the star witness.
- He admitted to me that he shot a man.
- Michael did not have the specific--
- But rodriguez's defense attorney
Told the jury it was corey hawkins
Who killed nathan paet.
- There is no other evidence that the state has presented
That michael was the actual shooter.
- When the jury got the case,
It didn't take long to reach a verdict.
- Guilty of first degree murder with use of a deadly weapon.
- Guilty of first degree murder and conspiracy.
He was sentenced to life
Without the possibility of parole.
- It's my last night in hawaii.
- Next was michelle paet.
At the very last minute, she pleaded guilty
To first degree murder and conspiracy.
The paet family asked the death penalty
Be taken off the table.
- The chamorro culture, it's-- we don't get to play god.
- Right. - Eye for an eye
Wasn't necessarily what we wanted.
I mean, I think for-for her to know that her family
Was going to move on without her,
That her kids were going to grow up
Knowing what had happened,
That was, I guess, more satisfying than--
Than the death penalty.
- The day she was sentenced,
Michelle addressed the court.
Michelle was sentenced to life without parole.
Corey hawkins received the same sentence
After he pleaded guilty to first degree murder
And conspiracy.
And in exchange for her cooperation,
Jessica austin was offered a deal
As she pleaded guilty to the lesser charge of conspiracy.
She was given probation.
- It's the case detectives anderson and williams told us.
They still can't quite get over.
- The find out that his own wife had caused that
Was just almost more than you could bear as a human being.
- It's the reason detective williams decided
To speak with us.
To tell nathan's story exactly how it happened
So that everyone knows the truth,
Especially his children.
[indistinct chatter]
- I would like them to know, as sad as it is,
What their mother did.
It would bother me a great deal if she pretended
To her children or to her family
That she was just an innocent bystander
In all of this, and she was not.
♪
- You became parents all over again?
- Yeah.
Yeah.
- Nathan's parents took custody of the children.
Why did you decide to do that?
- I think nate would have wanted it.
You know, he always said he wanted the kids
To be close to us.
And he wanted to raise them in guam.
I just felt like it was the right thing to do.
And every so often, carmelita and the kids
Stop by nathan's grave site on the island.
- They take turns going up and, you know,
To say their prayers and to tell him
What's going on with them.
- And for carmelita, too,
A moment to visit with her son.
Who was back home
On the island he loved so much.
- That's all for this edition
Of "dateline: Secrets uncovered."
I'm craig melvin. Thank you for watching.